Government planning to cut CO2 emissions by 15-20 percent

Extreme weather conditions, rising sea levels and health problems potentially related to environmental pollution have prompted Thailand’s new government to draft a plan that will require major industrial companies to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 15-20 percent.

The plan, which should be completed in the next few months but still lacks a firm timeline for implementation, focuses on power producers, refineries, petrochemical firms and transportation companies, said Tawarath Sutabutr, director of the Energy Ministry's policy and strategy coordination office.

“There is a new emphasis on reducing emissions as global warming has become a major issue,” Tarawath said. “We must step up our energy efficiency to the top tier.”

Growing concerns over the adverse effects of climate change in Thailand have prompted the government and private sector in this middle-income, manufacturing-based country to beef up efforts to reduce emissions. But environmental activists, including Greenpeace and other local groups, say the government can do more to mandate stricter environmental standards.

Thailand is the seventh largest emitter of carbon dioxide in Asia, emitting 4.2 tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere per person per year, according to the UN Development Programme (UNDP) - more than in both China (3.8 tonnes) and India (1.2 tonnes).

Tougher stance

What is the Bangkok climate change meeting about?
	The United Nations-sponsored meeting in the Thai capital, from 31 March until 4 April, will develop a work programme for the next two years to help countries draw up a deal to cut greenhouse gas emissions after 2012, when the first phase of the Kyoto Protocol expires.
	The Kyoto Protocol is a commitment made in 1997 by 36 industrialised countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by at least five percent against the baseline of 1990.
	Countries need to come up with a deal in 2009, giving them another two years before the first phase ends, to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. The first phase of the Kyoto Protocol took eight years to get ratified.
	The Bangkok meeting is the first since a UN-sponsored conference on the Indonesian island of Bali three months ago to negotiate a new deal on climate change to be put in place after 2012. The Bali meeting was attended jointly by the 192 Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the 177 Parties to the Kyoto Protocol.
	Reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have warned that if greenhouse gas emissions are not cut by at least 30 percent in the next 10 to 15 years, global temperatures would be set to increase by two degrees Celsius. Specialists say this would destroy 30 to 40 percent of all known species and bring bigger, fiercer and more frequent heat waves, floods and droughts.

The first major efforts to restrict emissions after decades of industrialisation occurred last year when the government took a tougher line on new petrochemical projects in one of the country’s largest industrial estates, Map Ta Phut, in Rayong Province.

The investments were given the green light only after the country’s two major petrochemical players - PTT and Siam Cement - agreed to make drastic cuts in nitrogen oxide and sulphur dioxide emissions, as well as reduce the level of volatile organic compounds that were feared to cause cancer among local villagers.

Even so, environmentalists said the country’s Power Development Plan drafted last year did not go far enough to reduce emissions from power plants. The Thai chapter of Greenpeace has argued that the Energy Ministry overestimates the country’s power demand, disregards more efficient technology like co-generation power plants, and has failed to mandate energy-saving techniques.

Besides trying to reduce emissions, Thai efforts to prepare for the real consequences of climate change are still in their infancy. Researchers say extreme weather and changing rainfall patterns pose the greatest risk, as more than half of its workforce is still employed in agriculture.

“Farmers in Laos may be better equipped to handle extreme weather than in Thailand, as here we have depleted our resources and pushed everything to the edge so there is no room to step back,” Anond Snidvongs, a leading climate change scientist in Thailand, told IRIN.

Bangkok sinking as oceans rise

Thailand is also concerned about rising sea levels. Bangkok, home to nearly 15 percent of the country’s 66 million people, is at risk of being deluged with water in the coming decades as the world’s oceans swell.

The city sits 1-1.5 metres above sea level, but is also sinking at a rate of about 10cm per year as the heavy buildings continue to compress the swampy soil that forms its foundation, Anond said.

The problem now for Thailand is getting people to take action. While the government can mandate stricter emissions standards, implement energy conservation measures and find ways to prepare for higher sea levels, it is more difficult to encourage rural farmers to break with traditions that have held for years to face a threat that might still be decades away.

“Farmers should save water at their farms and diversify crops so they don’t just rely on one crop,” said Anond. “They need to develop mechanisms at the household and community levels to be able to cope in the case of extreme weather like droughts or flooding. There is no one-size-fits-all approach, but farmers need to start thinking of these things.”

“Farmers still operate under the assumption that they don’t need to change because the weather will probably not change next year,” Anond said. “We need to find a better way to communicate risk to them so they can start to change their habits.”

Thailand, incidentally, is hosting the next round of UN-sponsored talks to chalk out a deal to cut greenhouse gas emissions. The five-day talks end on 4 April.

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